


As the Apple Tree

by CracklPop



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ardyn Redeemed, Chocobros-Sort Of? At the End? A Little?, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, MT!Prompto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-02 13:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20276737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CracklPop/pseuds/CracklPop
Summary: Ardyn and Prompto, freed of the Astrals and the Empire, wander Eos and find a home in each other.





	As the Apple Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Running Behind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10869282) by [Asidian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asidian/pseuds/Asidian). 

> This piece owes its inspiration to Asidian's MT!Prompto, who's heartbreaking and lovely. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or profit from them.

_It’s over_, Ardyn told himself. _I’m free. _

He’d thought for centuries, millennia, that his ultimate fate was written in the stars, unalterable and unbearable. He’d thought his rebellion against the unkind fate the Astrals had assigned him was limited to inflicting suffering on those around him. But now…now he was facing a future made by self-determination alone.

It had worked, his desperate gamble had _worked_, and both Astrals and star scourge were banished.

He stepped back from the great crystal and saw that it no longer glowed with energy, but instead had become a dull, lead-grey stone. As he watched, the stone developed tiny fissures, which grew rapidly into large cracks. Before Ardyn could try to think of a way to contain it, the former crystal shattered, exploding outward. 

Ardyn instinctively threw himself to the unforgiving floor of Zegnautus Keep, protecting his head and trying to raise a shield of magic to protect himself. He reached—and found nothing. The wells of energy he had drawn from, both daemon-sourced and through his blood as a Lucis Caelum, were dry. 

Temporarily deafened by the force of the crystal’s self-destruction, Ardyn moved forward cautiously, as quickly as he dared. The air was heavy with dust and fragments of stone and as Ardyn continued to make his way through the Keep, he was astonished at the breadth of destruction. From what he could feel, his injuries appeared to be minor, but he saw bodies ripped apart from the force of the explosion. 

He staggered slowly to the throne room, where Aldercapt slumped, lifeless, on his icy throne, the bodies of his guard strewn around him. Ardyn blinked and continued to wander the long, industrial halls of the Keep. The crystal’s destruction seemed to have wiped out anything living and Ardyn wondered how far the effect had spread. He walked past storage rooms and dormitories and armories, then back to the areas of the Keep where Verstael had his private playground of horrors. They were the most heavily protected, with the thickest walls and the strictest defenses, and Ardyn hesitated in front of the first set of doors. 

His hand rose to push them open and he examined it, tracing the lines of tendon and muscle in his fingers to his sinewy wrist, seeing for the first time in countless years the beautiful harmony of his body’s operation. He was _Ardyn_ again, just Ardyn. This skin was his and his alone, the roiling, poisonous mass of daemons contained within the bounds of an immortal body gone at last. 

Without the taint of scourge or madness, however, Ardyn found the thought of Verstael’s haunt far less palatable. 

Still, Ardyn made himself enter the laboratories, and beyond the doors he found more death. The poor monsters Verstael had labored over lay twisted and abandoned in their cells. A score of Magitek soldiers had collapsed, contorted into strange, mechanical shapes on the ground. Ardyn went deeper into Verstael’s territory and at last saw signs that not everything had died. 

In the final lab space, the one at the center of the complex, Verstael Besithia himself was propped against a wall, his chest rising and falling unevenly with labored breaths, blood smeared on the floor around him. He tipped his head back to gaze balefully at Ardyn’s approach. 

“…you do this?” Verstael rasped. “Never…trusted you…warped bastard…something wrong with you…inside.” 

Ardyn lifted an eyebrow, darkly amused. 

“Something wrong with _me_ inside, you say?” Ardyn gestured eloquently around the laboratory, at the unpadded medical tables that bore the forms of Verstael’s victims. His eyes swept past the unmoving bodies, some of them still sluggishly bleeding. He paused when he saw movement from one of the tables in the far corner.

Ardyn didn’t know what Verstael had been trying to accomplish; some of the corpses he passed were barely recognizable as human in origin, and most of them seemed to comprise both organic and mechanical parts. He stopped at the table in the back, where a mostly human-looking boy was held immobile by sturdy restraints. The boy’s eyes were closed, but he was weakly pulling against the loosened strap on his right arm. The right wrist bore the barcode all Verstael’s disposable creatures were imprinted with, and although his left arm looked normal enough, a panel open on his forearm revealed that the limb was some sort of mechanical-organic hybrid material. 

Although it had been two thousand years at least since he had practiced any kind of healing, Ardyn hadn’t forgotten his training, and from what he could see, the boy on the table would be lucky to survive if left alone. He had been cut into, his chest cavity visible and held open by a rib spreader, as though Verstael or one of his assistants had been in the process of performing a surgery. Ardyn considered the boy’s condition and glanced to the side of the table, seeing tools sufficient for him to close the boy up, if he wanted to. 

Ardyn toyed with a surgical blade and fingered a packet of sterilizing wipes, a dizzying swell of memories rushing over him—times he had moved from bed to bed in a hospital, healing with medicine and bandages, but also with touch. He hadn’t helped another soul since his gods-damned brother had strung him up and left him to eternal suffering. 

A noise from the table made Ardyn return a sharp look to the boy. His eyes had opened and Ardyn met the shockingly vibrant violet-blue gaze without meaning to. The boy’s face was twisted with pain and Ardyn sighed. He could—and would—leave Verstael to perish in agony and solitude without an ounce of regret, but turning down the opportunity to save a wounded creature was…not what Ardyn Lucis Caelum would have done. And it was very much what Chancellor Ardyn Izunia would have done. 

Ardyn, who was now neither Izunia nor Lucis Caelum, felt again a vertiginous thrill of freedom. He could _choose_. He ripped open the sterilizing wipes and began to prepare the tools. 

At the sound, the boy flinched as much as he could in his restraints and closed his eyes again. 

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Ardyn said, and was rewarded with another direct blue stare, disbelieving this time. “I’m not here to hurt you,” Ardyn said again, “but this will hurt. Rather a lot, I’m afraid. Still, better than death, hm?” 

The boy bit his lip and closed his eyes, but not before Ardyn caught the look of resignation and pain. He sighed again but went to work. It was a long, grisly job, and the boy passed out again before Ardyn was through. 

When finally Ardyn felt he could do no more with the materials at hand, he unbuckled and unattached every strap holding the boy down and, surprising himself, brushed a hand over the pale blond stubble on the boy’s skull. 

He’d closed up the panel on the boy’s arm and it had disappeared seamlessly into the skin covering. Ardyn had checked the rest of the boy’s body over and found nothing so severe it needed immediate treatment. His skin was already regenerating around the places it had torn against the bindings, healing at a remarkable rate, but there were still scars and signs of repeated abuse. At least the boy had all his limbs and appeared to be capable of higher thought processes. Ardyn didn’t know that he could say the same for the other tables’ occupants. 

After finishing with the boy, Ardyn drifted around the lab, but if there had been any more survivors, they had expired while he had been sewing up his patient. Ardyn took a certain grim satisfaction from the sight of Verstael, whose lifeless body had fallen to the floor, sightless eyes fixed in an expression of anger and dissatisfaction. Ardyn didn’t bother to go any closer, just ensured the man no longer breathed and walked away from the laboratories. 

He had done what he could. If the boy awoke again, he would find his own way out. Ardyn didn’t know what had become of the rest of Eos, but he was losing interest. His last vestiges of concern with the outside world had been spent stitching up Verstael’s little experiment and now all Ardyn wanted was quiet and time to be alone in his own head. 

His surroundings had begun to take on a dream-like quality, as had the last several hours. He remembered the destroyed crystal, the defeated Astrals, the expulsion of the star scourge, but they were dim and distant…and growing more so every moment that passed. 

Ardyn went to an exit, guided by habit more than any concrete motivation. He wanted out, he wanted away. He paused for a long few minutes at the doorway that led down, briefly convinced he heard something stir in the deserted hallways behind him. But the noise wasn’t repeated, so Ardyn shook his head and continued on his way. 

\- X -

Unit 05953234 awoke to pain. An insistent throbbing in his head, a sharp twinge in his left arm, and a raging inferno in his chest. He knew better than to move, though, or to open his eyes right away. He wasn’t sure if he was still in the special lab, but no one had given him any directives, so he stayed motionless. 

The room was quiet. Unit 05953234 breathed as softly as he could, listening. After a while, he risked opening his eyes a tiny bit, surveying his surroundings under his lashes. No one was near him and it was still silent. In all his time in this lab, he had never heard it so quiet. It didn’t seem to matter how severely the units in the lab were corrected, there was always an occasional involuntary noise from the various stimuli the researchers exposed them to. 

Unit 05953234 had thought at times that certain researchers enjoyed those helpless sounds. Paradoxically, that knowledge had made Unit 05953234 more determined to remain silent than the threat of punishment had. No doubt his contrary, illogical reaction was why he and most of his birth group hadn’t made it to the ranks of the Magitek infantry. They had been judged failures, and the only thing that had saved Unit 05953234 from termination was blind luck—one of the head researcher’s assistants had grabbed an N-iP01357 group member at random for more advanced experimentation, and that member had been Unit 05953234. 

Sometimes he wondered if termination would have been less painful than what had happened to him since then. 

Unit 05953234 dared to open his eyes fully when the lack of aural input persisted. He tensed his muscles despite his best efforts, but found, to his astonishment, that he was no longer immobilized. 

Heart pounding, Unit 05953234 raised his right wrist a fraction off the table, waiting, petrified, to be restrained again. But nothing happened. Very slowly, he looked around as much as his position allowed. The lab appeared…deserted. He saw no assistants, no researchers, and the vague shapes he could make out on tables near him were unmoving. 

Unit 05953234 lay there, confused. He could remember being brought up from cold storage, then taken into the special lab, then…a new researcher. A tall one, with long, sloppily tended hair a curious burgundy shade the unit had never seen on a human before. His eyes had been golden and a little wild and he had said…. Unit 05953234 felt his face crease into a frown as he recalled the words. 

_I’m not here to hurt you. _

Then, _better than death, hm?_ Better than death. But units didn’t _die_, they were…decommissioned. It was odd, the researcher using such terminology. Speaking to a unit about pain as though it were something he wished to avoid causing. As if it were relevant, as if a unit’s pain was somehow…_meaningful_, the way a human’s would be. 

Then Unit 05953234 remembered the shaking, the way his wrist restraint had been jarred loose when the entire laboratory complex shuddered, as though from a massive blast. Maybe…maybe the Keep had sustained damage and the humans had left already?

That made sense to the unit. Yes, if he were among the things left behind, that was logical. After all, failed experiments would be the last priority, surely. Unit 05953234 nodded a little and risked sitting up. He tensed all over, waiting to be corrected, but, again, nothing happened. Emboldened, the unit swung his legs over the side of the table, then winced, rubbing at the tender skin of his chest. When he glanced down at himself, Unit 05953234 found that the unpleasant organ assessment the researchers had been conducting appeared to have been concluded. His skin had been sewn together with unusually careful, even stitches, and already it had begun to knit together. The pain was constant, but he knew from experience that the muscles underneath were repairing themselves as he sat there. 

Unit 05953234 took thorough inventory of the room, noting with both elation and terror that the chief researcher had died not twenty feet away, and seeing with mingled sadness and pity that the other units in the lab no longer functioned. But nowhere did Unit 05953234 see the tall researcher. He frowned again, gently maneuvering himself off the table so he could walk around the laboratory and look more closely. 

No. The researcher who _wasn’t here to hurt him_ did not appear to be in the lab. So he must have left. Unit 05953234 glanced up at the doors with trepidation. It was one of the Rules, one of the first Rules. Units could not raise a hand against a superior and they could not perform tasks without a directive. And the units assigned to the researchers could not leave a laboratory without permission. 

Unit 05953234 looked from the dead body of Research Chief Besithia to the thick, metal doors of his lab. 

_I’m not here to hurt you._

There was no one to tell Unit 05953234 to leave. And there was no one to make him stay. 

_I’m not here to hurt you._

He forced his feet forward, toward the door, refusing to turn his head in any direction but the exit. He should wait. Others would come. There would be orders. Directives. 

_I’m not here to hurt you._

Unit 05953234 pushed open the doors and moved down a dark hallway, following the path that led away from the labs. Once he was past the laboratory compound, he rushed forward, lightheaded with pain and fright. Every scar, every mark on his skin seemed to light up to remind him of the lessons, the corrections, he had endured so that he understood his place in the Empire. 

He ignored it, pushing his tired, aching body harder, and was rewarded by the glimpse of a swirling coat and the tips of long, burgundy-colored hair. 

Unit 05953234 was too late to catch the same elevator as his researcher, but he found another way down, and still there was no one to tell him what he should do. 

It was cold on the ground. He recognized the major landmarks of Gralea but the buildings immediately surrounding Zegnautus Keep’s tether were rubble and there was no one around. Unit 05953234 couldn’t stop the convulsive shivers of his body, naked still from the laboratory session and healing from the chest incisions. He staggered toward a partially intact structure and limped on numb feet into its meager shelter. It had been a barracks as of the day before, and Unit 05953234 found supplies to adequately clothe himself and better withstand the wintry conditions of the Empire’s capitol city. 

Picking through the barracks had taken time, though, and Unit 05953234 didn’t know how to find the tall researcher once he left the building. Tugging at the close-fitted cap that covered his shaved head, Unit 05953234 decided to follow the easiest path away from the destruction. It seemed unwise to linger in the area, and he would have to…. Well, he wasn’t sure what he should do, but staying in a place where he had survived humans struck him as foolhardy. 

Unit 05953234 was never sure what, precisely, the researchers had done to him. He knew parts of him—notably his left arm—were more mechanical than living tissue, but he thought of himself as mostly organic matter. Not human, of course, never that, not even for a moment of his existence, but not…not Magitek, either, or wholly machine. He didn’t know if any of it showed, though, and staying out of the way was the best plan to avoid scrutiny.

Gradually the path Unit 05953234 took led him through better, nicer parts of the city, streets beyond the reach of the event that had damaged the Keep. Unit 05953234 looked ahead for the way that met with least resistance and walked on and on. He traveled through dawn and then noon and on into sunset, losing himself in the novel mishmash of smells and sounds. 

Unit 05953234 kept his head down and his steps measured, trying to disappear into the street as best he could, but he couldn’t entirely ignore the growing bustle around him. There was a tense air to the people around him—likely due to what he gathered had been a massive explosion aboard the floating Keep. The voices around him relayed snippets of information. Words like _Emperor Aldercapt_ and _Lucis Caelum_. Words like _daemon._

Eventually, Unit 05953234 found himself leaving the city behind, the houses and businesses growing farther and farther apart, until he walked alone down a snow-dusted road in the gathering darkness. Great fir trees grew on either side of the empty road, casting long, dense shadows on the moon-silvered ground. 

Unit 05953234 might have been frightened, if he had lived a different life, but instead the isolation soothed him. No researcher would experiment on him in the middle of a street in a forest. There were no medical tables, no needles, no surgical knives. Nothing but the soft, faraway hoots of nocturnal birds and the hushed brush of the branches high above him, swaying in the wind. Snow drifted, quiet on top of quiet, and Unit 05953234 felt something in him relax a little. He felt very sleepy all of a sudden and he turned off the road to venture deeper into the trees. 

Little noises on either side of him kept him awake, but they didn’t sound urgent or alarming, so Unit 05953234 kept going until he was out of sight of the road. Then he sat down on a pile of winter-dried leaves and leaned his weary back against the solid trunk of an evergreen. Unit 05953234 tilted his head back, peering up through a thick gathering of tree tops at the brightly shining moon. The calm of the moment, the contrast of the light and dark, evoked a feeling of rightness deep inside him, and Unit 05953234 wished there were a way to capture the view and keep it with him always. 

Memories were such unreliable things. When he was put into cold storage and taken out, he was usually a bit muddled at first. Nothing he remembered was ever in order, and it took him days to sort everything out. He could always recall the Rules, and the purpose of units to the Empire of Niflheim, and his own statistics—Unit 05953234, group N-iP01357, male, seventeen years in service—but sometimes not much more, not at first. 

If there were a way to have images there to remind him, maybe he wouldn’t be confused. And Unit 05953234 couldn’t imagine anything better than getting to capture the sight of moonlight-tipped treetops, snow falling all around. 

Struck by an idea, Unit 05953234 leaned forward to see if some of the snowflakes would land in his mouth. He rose unsteadily to his feet and stood in the open, hands outstretched, head tilted back and lips parted in anticipation. After a few seconds, he felt small, chilled touches on his face and on his tongue. There was no taste beyond _cold_ and _winter_, but it was wonderful. Unit 05953234 made an involuntary sound, a surprisingly loud sound, something that was…happy. 

When he brought his head back down, he was looking across the clearing at the tall researcher. 

“Hello,” Unit 05953234 said shyly. “I-I was…I was looking for you.” 

\- X -

Ardyn trod the streets of Gralea wearily, head down. His hat was lost somewhere in the skies above the grey city, and the wind had twisted his hair into elflocks. He hadn’t chosen a specific destination, he merely allowed his feet to guide him on the easiest path away from the cries and destruction, until he was past the reach of the shattered crystal, and then on farther still, outside the city walls, down a lonely road lined with pine trees. 

He walked for a long time, losing count of the hours, his nose filled with the scent of evergreen and sap and snow and his vision blurred from the bite of the wind. After a while, he turned off the road, his body needing rest for the first time in so many years. Ardyn yielded to its demands without argument, sitting down and closing his eyes and letting the silence of a snowy wood drift over him in a soft blanket that muffled everything, even his thoughts. 

The quiet lasted long enough for him to fall into a light sleep, but he woke when he heard laughter. Feeling an unexpected spark of curiosity, Ardyn rose and followed the sound. It was an uncertain but delighted laugh, hesitant at first and then infectiously merry. Ardyn paused at the edge of the trees, staring at the figure across the clearing. 

It was…the boy from the laboratory. Ardyn blinked a few times in disbelief, but the person in front of him remained. The boy had found some clothing and a hat, but it was the same face, the same small frame. 

“Hello,” the boy said, and Ardyn began to approach, wondering. “I-I was…I was looking for you.”

“Did you follow me?” Ardyn asked, drawing closer. The boy didn’t flinch, just leaned forward, shy but eager. 

“I tried. I lost you in the-the Keep, but then I found the snow.” The boy gently waved his hand through the thickening fall of white and laughed again. “And then I found you.”

Ardyn inclined his head in acknowledgment, looking down at the boy with more interest than anything else had provoked since he’d left Gralea. He was…fresh, somehow, and he didn’t make Ardyn weary, the way everything else seemed to. 

“Can I stay with you?” the boy asked, blinking those gem-like eyes at Ardyn beseechingly. “You said—” He broke off, a tinge of pink creeping up his neck and across his cheeks. 

“I said?” Ardyn prompted. 

“You said you…didn’t want to hurt me.” The words were so quiet as to be indistinguishable by the end of the sentence, and Ardyn had to bend down to catch them. 

“Hm,” Ardyn observed, tapping a finger against his leg in thought. “How do you know I’m going where you want to be?”

“I just—I just want to be someplace no one will hurt me,” the boy replied. “I don’t care where it is.”

“Well,” Ardyn began, eyes sweeping over the slight figure, assessing. “We’ll see. At the moment, my most pressing concern is getting out of the snow before this body of mine grows too chilled. You may accompany me to shelter, if you wish.”

“I do!” The boy hopped into step next to Ardyn and had to skip a little to keep up. Ardyn, remembering the aborted surgery abruptly, halted. 

“How is your chest?” he asked. The boy shrugged and winced a little at the motion.

“Healing,” he said. “It was my purpose, you know. To help find better ways to heal humans. It didn’t always work that well—” here the boy tapped his artificial left arm with a wry smile—“but they improved. And so I improved.”

Ardyn, distantly, felt a little sick at the boy’s careless delivery of what were likely horrific procedures. Ardyn had been involved with Verstael’s work to a certain degree—more in the Magitek area than anything else—but there were things Besithia had kept to himself, ambitions he’d worked to realize without the aid of an ancient, vengeful Lucis Caelum at his heels. 

“Good,” was all Ardyn said in the end, slowing his pace to match the boy’s shorter stride. 

Once they got back to the road, the boy was able to make better speed, and they found an abandoned armory and refueling station shortly after. There were no weapons left inside, but Ardyn managed to unearth a few packets of hard tack, a protein bar, and several flat-packed bags of water. 

The boy looked askance at the hard tack and protein bar, shaking his head in refusal. 

“I know it doesn’t taste very good, but it won’t poison you,” Ardyn said. 

“Haven’t had solid food since I was eight years in service,” the boy explained. 

“Oh,” Ardyn said, understanding then. Of course—all the units received intravenous nourishment. He knew the boy would faint from hunger before finding a way to feed his body as he was accustomed, though, so Ardyn broke off a piece of the hard tack, softening it with water before he urged the boy to take it. 

“Try to eat just that for now. I suppose we’ll see what we find as we go along.” He realized a few seconds later that he’d spoken as if they would travel together longer than a day. The boy seemed to realize the same thing, because an enormous grin spread across his face as he accepted the hard tack. 

“Thank you,” he said, the words sitting awkwardly in his mouth, as though he rarely had call to use them. Ardyn nodded then tipped his head to the side. 

“What would you like to be called?”

“I am Unit 05953234, group—”

“No, I mean, is there a name you would like me to use?”

“Unit 05953234….” The boy trailed off and bit his lip. “How-how do they name…things…where you are from?”

“Is that how you think of yourself?” Ardyn asked. “As a thing?” 

He supposed it made sense, although he hadn’t put much thought into it before. For all the work he’d done on shaping the Magitek infantry, he certainly had never sat down and discussed identity and self with any of them. 

“Of course,” the boy answered frankly, looking surprised. “I’m not a human. I was created to serve in the Magitek forces, but my performance and development were inadequate. I would have been decommissioned with the rest of my group, but I was chosen to serve under Research Chief Besithia instead.”

“I see.” Ardyn bit into his share of the hard tack. 

“If you don’t mind…what is your name?” the boy asked, looking up at Ardyn. 

“Ardyn,” he answered, not bothering with anything further. He wasn’t sure what the rest should be, anyway. 

“Ardyn,” the boy repeated to himself, mouth continuing to shape the sounds. 

“Many people use names from the old language,” Ardyn said after a moment. 

The boy looked up at him, confused. 

“To name their children,” Ardyn added. “Flamma. Lux. Vita.” He paused. “Caelum.”

“Caelum,” the boy said. “I heard that…in Gralea…they were talking….”

“It is the name of the Lucian king,” Ardyn replied neutrally. 

“Not Caelum, then,” the boy decided. “Would you choose?” 

Ardyn leaned back against the wall, examining the boy with more care this time. He was small, both in frame and stature, and his build was angular rather than round. The violet-blue eyes dominated a too-thin face with a pointed chin and sharp cheekbones. His coloring was starkly pale in the dim light, and the blond fuzz framing his face was silvered from the glow of the moon through the high windows. 

Even sitting still, there was a restlessness to him, an energy ready to dart forward unpredictably, in laughter or violence. Despite everything he must have undergone in his life, the boy was hopeful, and Ardyn remembered the joy he had taken in the snow, delight fizzing through him and spilling out for anyone to see. 

“_Argentum vivium_,” Ardyn murmured. “Living silver. Quicksilver.”

“Quicksilver,” the boy said slowly. “But it doesn’t—it’s not like the other sounds. The other names.”

“Ah, no, quicksilver is not. Perhaps….” Ardyn considered. “Prompto…Argentum.”

“That sounds proper,” the boy agreed. “Prompto Argentum.” He lingered over the syllables, a pleased smile briefly curving his lips up before his face fell and his eyes came up to Ardyn’s, worried. “It’s a name for a person.”

“Indeed.” Ardyn nodded. “It is your name. Prompto.” 

“But.…” The boy—_Prompto_—shook his head. 

“Give it some time,” Ardyn advised, removing his scarf to pillow it beneath his head as he stretched out on the cracked flooring of their shelter. “And sleep.”

“Should I keep watch?” Prompto asked. 

“If you like,” Ardyn replied, closing his eyes. He was suddenly too weary to think about it. “I don’t much care. I doubt there’s anyone looking for either of us, but if it comforts you, go ahead.”

Ardyn listened as Prompto shifted around uncertainly. Then sleep took him and he let the dreams sweep him off, uncaring whether or not the boy stayed awake to guard them. 

When Ardyn woke up in the morning, however, it became clear that Prompto had given up at some point during the night, as his compact form was tucked up against Ardyn’s chest and his breathing was deep and even. Ardyn tried to remember the last time he had sought or received an affectionate touch. He had enjoyed using his height and size to intimidate, in his time as Chancellor Izunia, and he had grudgingly accepted the care Verstael had provided when nursing him back to health. But the last creature to snuggle up against him had been…Aera. 

That thought still brought a twinge of pain and regret and even anger, so Ardyn banished it and focused his attention on the boy in front of him. Prompto—and Ardyn felt himself smiling just _thinking_ the absurd, strangely charming name—had fine-grained skin the color of cream that showed only the faintest tinge of pink from windburn and exposure. Ardyn wondered how advanced his healing abilities were. His eyes drifted down along the line of Prompto’s left arm, lingering on the remarkably natural-looking fingers. 

Verstael and his army of white-coated sadists might not have been capable of the kind of Astral-granted magic the Lucis Caelum line had wielded, but they had been formidable scientists nonetheless. It was a shame they hadn’t been inclined toward kinder methods of discovery. In that moment, Ardyn felt a pang of true remorse that any of his actions had furthered the atrocities perpetuated by Verstael. 

Prompto’s breathing sped up and his whole body went unnaturally still. He opened his eyes cautiously, unveiling a chary blue gaze. When he saw Ardyn’s face, the stiffness of his muscles relaxed all at once and he beamed up at his rescuer like the sun rising on a summer morning. Ardyn genuinely felt warmed by the sight. 

“Good morning!” Prompto chirped, keeping his voice soft but unable to hide his enthusiasm. 

“No one tried to assail us during the night, I take it?” Ardyn replied. 

“Oh.” Prompto blushed, making the light smattering of freckles across his cheeks stand out. “I’m sorry, Ardyn. You didn’t tell me to—that is, what you said made sense and I…I was…tired.” Prompto dropped his eyes, expression ashamed. 

“I meant what I said. I don’t care to sit up at night watching for enemies and I don’t see the point. The Emperor of Niflheim is dead, and with him the Empire’s drive to conquer.” Ardyn took a breath. “Furthermore, I believe the right of mortals to use the power of the gods has ended. We live in a new age, Prompto.”

Prompto blinked at the speech, nonplussed. 

“Oh,” he said again. “But…what age are we in, then?”

“The age of free will. The age of man. My old age, I’m afraid.” 

“You’re not…old,” Prompto protested. 

“I have lived more than two millennia, my dear boy, and the time for immortality is over. I have rejoined the flow of years, and now my days are numbered.”

“That’s….” Prompto trailed off, frowning. 

“Dramatic? Self-aggrandizing? Both things I have been accused of before, I assure you.”

“I was going to say sad,” said Prompto. “Not sad that you can live your life again, but sad that you’ve been alone for so long, outside of time.”

It was Ardyn’s turn to blink in surprise. 

“You don’t consider immortality a gift?”

“Sometimes being alive is a burden,” Prompto said, fidgeting with the fingers of his left hand. 

Ardyn didn’t say anything else for a long time, just let Prompto lie there against him, a warm weight tethering him to the moment. 

\- X -

Unit 05953234 became Prompto Argentum slowly. He loved the sound of his new name, but also found it alarming on a deep level that was tied to _corrections_ and _punishments_ and the Rules. He had been told, over and over, in lessons both explicit and implicit, that he was a thing only, an item of property. And, as he had grown older, he had been told he was part of a group of defective units. 

Group N-iP01357 had been an experimental strain, Prompto had gathered from things he heard in the laboratories, a bit of a vanity project for Verstael Besithia in some ways. He had put much of his own youthful appearance into the group, but none of the units had been as strong or grown as quickly as their counterparts in different groups. 

Prompto remembered his training armor, the terror of having his limbs encased in metal, the blank panic that had descended as his head was trapped inside the impersonal covering. It was all too big for the N-iP01357 units; the training armor came in various sizes, to accommodate the growing Magitek units, but most of the other groups grew in predictable spurts and could be housed in identical armor. The N-iP01357 group was always shorter, and it was difficult for any of them to put on significant muscle. 

The trainers might have let the group proceed through the program despite their physical shortcomings if they had tolerated the treatments, but there, too, the N-iP01357 units failed. Prompto still got phantom tastes of the oily, black substance he had been injected with, then vomited back up, again and again. The other units in his group were the same; they couldn’t tolerate it, even though the units in other groups had no trouble assimilating the stuff. 

Prompto tried not to remember much of his past, and as he spent more time with Ardyn, he had enough new experiences to push the memories back.

Ardyn never pushed Prompto for information about his experiences at Zegnautus; neither did he share many details of his own history, beyond his age and the fact that, at some point, he had been a physician and a healer. Ardyn seemed caught up in his own thoughts most days, a slight frown sitting regularly on his strong features. He didn’t appear to have a goal or place in mind, but he never wanted to linger anywhere longer than a few days. The two of them traveled slowly but consistently, moving across the mountains outside Gralea and through the lands of nomadic tribes. 

Prompto learned to eat again, although he never could quite manage to correctly judge the amounts. Usually he looked to Ardyn to let him know what to put on his plate and how much of it to consume. Prompto found his companion easy company, for the most part. Ardyn was given to long silences and distant stares, but Prompto found the presence of someone who didn’t want to cause pain or make demands enormously peaceful. There was always the sound of another person breathing when Prompto went to sleep, and although Ardyn didn’t chatter away, he also never gave Prompto the impression he was deliberately ignoring him. 

Prompto didn’t know what thoughts consumed so much of Ardyn’s attention, but for his own part, Prompto could lose hours investigating the world unfolding around him. There were gossamer-fine spiderwebs glistening with dew every morning; clouds that formed fantastical animal shapes; clusters of brightly colored wildflowers growing cheerfully and haphazardly along the trail. 

They traded valuable odds and ends from Ardyn’s deep coat pockets for supplies from the infrequent settlements they came across, and, as they came down from the mountain country and into more populated areas, Ardyn and Prompto each put in periodic days of labor in exchange for money or food. Prompto was a quiet and earnest worker, Ardyn a withdrawn but uncomplaining one. 

Their days passed one into another, seamless and dreamlike, and Prompto had never been happier. His initial fear that Ardyn would leave, or push him away, diminished. And as they drew closer to greater civilization, Ardyn’s detachment began to dissipate at last. 

After two days’ worth of labor in the last of the mountain villages, Ardyn decided they should indulge in a hot meal at a diner in the largest town they had seen on their trip so far. They entered the establishment during a midday rush, then waited just outside the door for their table. Prompto looked out at the cool, blue sky and jagged mountaintops and was thinking about how he’d like to preserve the picture when Ardyn made a noise of amusement. Prompto turned, curious, to see Ardyn watching two teenage girls several feet away, who also were also waiting for a table. The girls glanced at Prompto and then away several times, their eyes lingering on his face as they giggled to each other. 

Prompto felt himself flush and he looked up at Ardyn. 

“Is there…something wrong with my appearance?” he whispered. 

“They find you attractive and are admiring your form,” Ardyn replied, a smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. 

Prompto opened and closed his mouth several times, astonished. It wasn’t just the foreignness of hearing that he might be considered physically appealing—it was the idea that these human girls, these…other…people…thought of Unit 05953234, of _Prompto_, as a person. A human person. He unconsciously rubbed the elbow of his left arm, memories of Verstael’s face flickering in his mind like afterimages. 

_The regeneration isn’t working as expected…we’ll have to take the entire arm…can’t you stop its fucking noises for two fucking minutes…attachment successful, sir, but this kind of procedure would not be tolerated by any human…. _Prompto closed his eyes, clutching at the arm spasmodically, hearing the research chief discuss Unit 05953234 with the lab assistants over and over, like the recordings they played of the Rules when the units were put away in their containment pods for the night. 

“…table now, I believe.” Ardyn’s cultured voice, so different from the sound of Besithia’s authoritarian bark, broke Prompto’s unhappy reverie and he jerked his gaze back up. “Our meal awaits,” Ardyn added, gesturing for Prompto to precede him into the restaurant. 

Prompto moved automatically, following Ardyn’s implied request, and found himself seated in a worn vinyl booth by a friendly but harried waitress. She brought them both tall glasses clouded with age and filled with iced water. Prompto toyed with his straw while Ardyn considered him thoughtfully. 

“You didn’t seem to like the attention,” Ardyn observed. “From the young ladies outside. You didn’t appear to find it flattering.” 

“What? Oh, yes, I mean, no. Well, I suppose it was?” Prompto accidentally snapped the straw in the middle, leaving a small rent that rendered it useless. 

“Hm,” Ardyn said, then handed over his own straw, still pristine in its wrapper. Prompto took it with a quick, grateful glance up at his companion. 

“It’s just….” Prompto tore the straw wrapper into tiny squares and spaced them evenly on the table, his thin fingers moving methodically and without hesitation. “That’s not my purpose. To be…desirable. I’m not…a viable…partner. For a person.” 

“You’re intelligent and compassionate and aesthetically pleasing,” Ardyn replied, leaning back into the booth’s shabby embrace with a slight shrug. “There are worse attributes for a potential partner to have.” 

“What can I get you boys?” the waitress asked, coming up to their table with a pad of paper and an expectant air. 

Prompto looked at the menu helplessly, the choices blurring together and most of them things he’d never heard of. 

“We’ll both have rice with a poached egg on top,” Ardyn told her. When she left, Prompto sighed. 

“Thank you. I’m sorry I have trouble with…with the food,” he said. 

“There’s no problem, truly,” said Ardyn. “I have not needed or taken in sustenance for many years, so limiting my body to eating what you eat is both prudent and convenient.” 

“I meant that there are too many options,” Prompto explained, running his fingers over the menu text. “What is a honey pastry?” 

“Mmm,” Ardyn smiled fully, crinkling the corners of his eyes and relaxing the weary lines on his forehead. “It’s bliss. We’ll procure some and you can see what you think.”

Their meals came in short order and Prompto got through most of his before his stomach protested. Ardyn took care of the bill, asking for a honey cake, as well, and soon they were back on the street, Prompto distracted by the cars rushing by. 

Ardyn drew him into a small green area a few blocks from the diner, and they sat down on an empty bench near a modest display of early season purple blooms.

“Now,” Ardyn said, opening the little white box the diner had provided. “This is honey pastry.” 

He lifted a small square comprising many thin layers of flaking, buttery pastry. Each layer looked to be sandwiched with a thick, golden liquid, and the smell was warm and comforting and faintly floral. Prompto inhaled and Ardyn smiled again, the expression sitting more easily on his face every time Prompto saw it. Ardyn took Prompto’s hand, placing a piece of pastry in it, and Prompto raised it to his lips tentatively. 

The feel of it, the flavor, was overwhelmingly decadent—intensely sweet and richer than anything he had ever eaten, but light, so light, as if every bit was dissolving on his tongue, leaving behind a lingering trace of…bliss. 

“Good?” Ardyn asked. 

Prompto thought of the best word to use, and somewhere in his memory banks he recalled something in a lesson book from his early years. 

“It’s…divine,” he said, returning Ardyn’s smile with one of his own. 

Prompto’s smile widened when Ardyn laughed outright. 

“Quite right, dear boy. Divine indeed.” 

\- X -

They took a meandering path after that first proper city; Ardyn set the course, such as it was, but he had no ultimate destination guiding him. He yielded to every impulse, reveling in the notion that his steps were guided by his own thoughts and muscles alone. He and Prompto didn’t avoid cities, but neither did they seek them out. 

Their drifting, short-term jobs kept them fed, as there was rebuilding and renewal everywhere they went, and workers were welcome. The very air seemed filled with possibility, Ardyn thought as they journeyed, as though by forcing the star scourge through the crystal’s portal and nullifying the Astrals, Ardyn had awakened something bright and new in Eos. 

Even the shops’ wares were more cheerful than Ardyn remembered, and in one of the larger towns, he and Prompto spent their meager store of surplus gil on new clothing. Ardyn chose a bright purple coat—which clashed wonderfully with his burgundy hair, making Prompto shake his head with a small smile—and added a lavender shirt, a pair of dark trousers, and sturdy but elegantly designed boots. Content with the haul, Ardyn watched Prompto disappear into a tiny fitting room with a pile of clothing taller than he was. 

Prompto modeled every shirt, vest, jacket, and pair of pants, his demeanor an irresistible mix of bashful and thrilled. Ardyn, who had no particular fondness for helping other people shop, found himself giving Prompto his full attention and developing real opinions about whether jade green or forest green looked better with the form-fitting, indigo denim pants Prompto had settled on. 

“It reminds me of the forest and the snow,” Prompto said, brushing worshipful fingers against the forest-green henley. “And it’s so soft.” He considered the lighter green shirt next, frowning slightly. “But this one makes me think of the spring, and how fresh everything was when we came down from the mountains.” 

Prompto turned to Ardyn then, a considering look crossing his expressive features as he held up each shirt to Ardyn’s chest and tilted his head in thought. 

“This one,” he decided, tapping the darker green. “It looks nicer with your eyes.”

Ardyn gave a startled laugh. 

“With _my_ eyes?” 

“I like your eyes,” Prompto replied. 

“Very well,” Ardyn said, feeling a strange, hot current of affection deep in his chest. He swept up his items along with the things Prompto had chosen: the jeans, a long wool coat, tall boots, and, of course, the dark green henley. He paused when picking up the coat. It was a practical blend that would both keep Prompto warm and hold up to at least light rain, but its old-fashioned, well-fitted lines were rather formal for the little blond, given what Ardyn had seen of his personality so far. 

“Don’t you like it?” Prompto asked as Ardyn hesitated over the marled wool. 

“I do, very much,” Ardyn responded immediately. “I just wonder what drew you to it.”

“Oh.” Prompto flushed, the freckles that had darkened over their months outside becoming more prominent. “It…reminds me of you.” 

Prompto gestured at Ardyn’s now-battered coat with an embarrassed shrug. 

“Ah,” Ardyn said, then shocked himself by bending to press his lips briefly to the crown of Prompto’s head. The boy’s hair had grown out considerably, but sections of it weren’t yet long enough to lie down flat and Ardyn felt the soft, yellow spikes brush against his cheeks like feathers. 

They paid, having the store employee cut off the tags so they could change into the clothing before they left the shop. A few minutes later, two well-dressed travelers exited the clothing store, worn backpacks now carrying bundles of their old shoes and clothing as well as their usual supplies. 

“Hungry?” Ardyn asked, nodding toward an open-air market a few blocks down. 

Prompto grinned and Ardyn felt that warm pulse of…tenderness again. It was disconcerting. He put a hand to the small of the boy’s back and guided him toward the tents. It felt curiously freeing to be in the new clothing. It was more modern in style than anything he’d bothered to don in centuries, and wearing it made him feel as though he’d shed an old skin. 

The glimpses he got of Prompto from the corner of his eye as they walked through myriad sellers’ stalls sent a jolt through him every time—if he hadn’t witnessed the slow transformation from traumatized prisoner to buoyant adventurer, he wouldn’t have been able to reconcile the two. 

Prompto stopped in front of a collection of dusty bits of machinery and oddly shaped metal parts and Ardyn blinked down at him, puzzled. 

“This doesn’t look particularly edible,” Ardyn observed. 

Prompto gently lifted a rectangular shape from the jumble and held it up for Ardyn to see. 

“I think—do you remember the old man in the town with the bell tower we worked on? He had that _photograph_—” Prompto’s voice took on the usual reverence he held for anything to do with art and images “—and an antique camera. This is—I think this is the same thing.” 

Ardyn looked more closely at Prompto’s find. 

“Hmm, yes, it appears to be. It also appears to be broken.”

“I could…maybe fix it?” Prompto turned pleading eyes up to Ardyn. “If we, um, have the gil, that is.”

Ardyn sighed. They were down to enough money to pay for maybe two or three modest meals each, and then they’d have to work again. The new clothing had nearly wiped them out, but Prompto’s boots had had holes in them, and they had agreed a change of clothes each would be worthwhile. Unfortunately, that didn’t leave anything left over for frivolity. 

Prompto, reading Ardyn’s expression, set the camera back down. 

“You fellas looking for work?” 

Ardyn glanced around at the voice and realized the stall’s proprietor had reappeared from where she had been rummaging through the precariously stacked boxes of what was likely more junk. 

“Yes,” Prompto chirped, then shot a quick look up at Ardyn for approval. 

“We are,” he agreed, returning his hand to Prompto’s back and feeling the boy’s muscles relax. 

“You two any good at fixing old cars?” the woman asked, squinting at them. 

“I like fixing things,” Prompto said hesitantly. 

“I’m familiar with combustion engines,” Ardyn added. 

“S’pose you can’t make it worse. And if you fix it, I’ll let you choose anything you like from here.” The woman gestured at the frankly depressing assortment of miscellaneous gears and old gadgets in front of them. 

Ardyn would prefer to leave and never see any of the rubbish again, but he didn’t have to look at Prompto to know the boy’s desire. He ran a hand through his overly long hair with resignation. 

“All right,” he said, and felt a quiver of excitement run through Prompto’s body. “Where’s this car, then?” 

\- X -

Prompto had a gift for repairing things electronic and mechanical, it turned out. He’d never seen what lay beneath _any_ vehicle’s hood before the old junk-seller’s rusted-out truck came into his life, but within half a day, Prompto had diagnosed and rectified the outstanding issues. 

The brilliance of Prompto’s grin when he claimed the broken camera as payment had seemed to charm the old woman, because she sent them away with a few extra bags of _usefuls_, as she called them. She shooed them off with something between a leer and a twinkle that Ardyn quite disliked but Prompto apparently found endearing, judging from the ebullient wave he gave her. 

Faced with Prompto’s enthusiasm, Ardyn had chosen his own payment in the form of a metal tuning fork, originally meant to help tune a guitar. If Ardyn tried, he could dimly recall the way his own mother had played, and he’d chosen the tuning fork on a whim. It joined a very small group of items he had acquired since Gralea that might be valuable one day if he ever settled in one place. 

And if he wandered for the remainder of his years…well, the number of items wasn’t large. He could part with them at any time. Still, he had run a pleased finger over the curve of the fork before placing it in his bag. 

The memory of an old lullaby his mother had sung to Ardyn and his brother occupied most of his thoughts as he and Prompto left the city behind and ventured into a forested area. The old woman had provided a simple lunch of noodles with vegetables for them, and Ardyn had secured supplies for a few more meals to last until they could find work that paid them actual gil. 

They would have to stop for an evening meal at some point, but Ardyn wasn’t hungry yet, and Prompto’s eyes were distant; no doubt he was dreaming about how to fix up the camera. Ardyn found his lips curving up into something suspiciously close to an indulgent smile and he shook his head in amused disbelief. How Prompto had managed to retain such a bright spirit in the omnipresent gloom that had been Verstael Besithia’s kingdom of despair was a mystery for the ages, truly. 

Later Ardyn would remember that night as the point he realized Prompto’s joyful incandescence never hindered his instinctive ruthlessness in the presence of danger. Ardyn had forgotten, perhaps, that although Prompto’s ultimate role in the Empire had been that of laboratory experiment, his formative years had been spent training with the expectation of a lifetime of combat. 

That knowledge came back to Ardyn with sudden relevance as he looked up from contemplating a just-blooming night flower to see what appeared to be a humanoid-shaped plant charge toward him. Before Ardyn could do more than reach for the long knife he kept at his belt, Prompto had leapt forward with a torch of some kind, warding off what Ardyn belatedly recognized as a mandrake. 

Prompto swept forward, one hand thrusting the flames at the mandrake, the other coming around with a sharp, wicked-looking spiked implement. Ardyn was still gripping his knife, watching for an opportunity to help when Prompto dispatched the mandrake with a speed and competence Ardyn had only seen in career soldiers.

“Thank you,” Ardyn said, voice unexpectedly thick. He cleared his throat and tried again, watching as Prompto calmly disbanded the impromptu weapons he had created. “That was—very brave. Thank you.”

“Did you know,” Prompto said, sounding a little distant, “that I was consistently last in my training squad? I was corrected over and over and over again.” He paused, somehow unraveling a piece of his makeshift torch to reveal a metal bar and a circular bit with what looked to be a lighter attached to it. “I was never any good at close-quarters combat. The only thing I could ever do right was fire a gun. And even then I wasn’t at the top of the class.”

“You…did you jump in front of me because of the training?” Ardyn asked, curious if Prompto could separate from his childhood programming when confronted by a high-stress situation and knowing the boy considered him, on some level, a higher-ranked officer. 

“You’re my superior,” Prompto said slowly, rising from where he was crouched on the grass and looking more alert. “You’re my superior but I didn’t help you because of the Rules…I helped you…because _I_ wanted you to survive. I like you. _I_ do. I, Prompto.” He shook his head, wonder in his face. “I wanted to see what we’ll do next. I wanted you to make me honey pastry. I wanted to hear you tell me a story about the world when it was young. I wanted those things, and I wanted them with you. So…when I hit that mandrake before it could touch you, it was because I wanted…you.” 

Ardyn gave into impulse yet again and pulled Prompto to his chest in a tight embrace, one hand in the middle of Prompto’s back and the other lightly tugging at his fluffy blond hair. Prompto stiffened for less than a second, then dropped what was in his hands with a clanging noise and fervently hugged Ardyn back. Ardyn felt the tip of a cold little nose press to the hollow of his throat and he smiled. 

“What do I smell like?” he asked. 

“Pine. Sweat. Violets.” Prompto inhaled again then rested his cheek against Ardyn’s lavender shirt with a sigh. “What do I smell like?”

“Hmm,” Ardyn considered, running his nose down Prompto’s temple and making him emit a small huff of laughter. “Greenery. Sweat, too. I imagine it’s hard work, taking down carnivorous plants. And, just here—” Ardyn traced his finger over the smooth skin beneath Prompto’s ear “—there’s a little honey.” 

“I saved part of a honey cake from a couple of days ago in my pack,” Prompto said, words indistinct as he spoke into Ardyn’s shirt. “Guess it’s probably squashed now, huh?”

Ardyn glanced over to the area of trampled grass where Prompto had thrown off his pack to swing into mandrake-defeating action. 

“Seems unfortunate but likely,” he decided, then turned his attention back to his deceptively slight traveling companion. “How on Eos did you get those weapons up so quickly?”

“Oh, uh….” Prompto pulled back a little to look up at him, a faint, pleased flush visible even in the low light. “Remember all those _usefuls_ Nesta gave us?”

“Was that the dreadful old woman’s name? Nesta?” 

“Yes, and she was…kind,” Prompto chided, giving Ardyn the most reproachful blue gaze he had seen in two millennia. 

“And you’re telling me you managed to create two combat-worthy weapons from those bags of junk she passed off on us?” 

“I had the ideas when I saw some of the parts on the table this morning,” Prompto replied, shrugging. “I worked on them a bit when you were getting supplies. I had been thinking the torch might be helpful, but I didn’t expect to try it out so soon. I’m glad it worked.” 

“Yes,” Ardyn agreed faintly, imagining how differently the evening attack might have gone without the aid of fire. 

“I’m pretty sure I can get that camera working again if I have a few hours to tinker with it,” Prompto continued, putting all the _usefuls_ back in their bag and waiting for Ardyn to start walking again before falling into step with him. 

“Let us endeavor to find you that time, my dear Prompto,” Ardyn said. 

“It takes film, isn’t that interesting?” said Prompto, the light-hearted lilt back in his voice already. “I wonder if anyone makes film anymore. I’m sure I could figure out how to develop it. I found a book about photography and film formats and things a few towns back. It was a little damaged because someone had thrown it out, but I rescued it. Can you imagine throwing something like that away?” 

Ardyn made a vaguely agreeable sound and Prompto smiled over at him. They walked into the night, aware of the dangers of the natural world but not, after all these years, in any peril from daemons. _Never again_, Ardyn thought, glancing down at the boy beside him with his own kind of joy. The days of assuming he and Prompto would part ways had long passed. 

Until Prompto left him, Ardyn would do everything he could to keep him safe and content and by his side. Without thinking too much about it, Ardyn began to hum the lullaby his mother had taught him, hearing the strings of the guitar accompany it only within the confines of his own mind. Maybe he could change that one day. 

Prompto gave another happy sigh and reached over to squeeze Ardyn’s hand as they went deeper into the forest. 

\- X -

Eventually, Ardyn noticed that his feet had drawn him back to Lucis. That they had, in fact, been on the westernmost reaches of the country for a while. He and Prompto had passed through another, smaller range of mountains and come down to the seashore, where Prompto ate briny-sweet shellfish and smoky-grilled bass and learned how to swim from the young son of a fisherman. 

Prompto’s reaction to immersion in the cold, salty water of the ocean was delightful. He shrieked and whooped and so clearly felt no restraint in his enjoyment, the radiance on his face as dazzling as the sunlight on the waves. The boy showing Prompto how to stay afloat howled with his own laughter as they splashed each other in the shallows. 

Ardyn, watching from the shore with the child’s father, shaded his eyes with a long-fingered hand and smiled. 

“He yours?” the fisherman asked, nodding toward Prompto.

“Yes, I suppose he is,” Ardyn replied, thoughtful. “As much as anyone can belong to someone else. By that measure, I am his as well, I believe.” 

“Not your son, then,” the fisherman said, making a sound of choked-off amusement. 

“Ah, I see. No. Not my son.” 

When Prompto and the fisherman’s boy returned, dripping and shivering and grinning blue-lipped grins, Ardyn wordlessly wrapped Prompto in a thick towel and rubbed his back in large, soothing circles. 

“Did you see?” Prompto asked. 

“It looked like enormous entertainment,” Ardyn replied as Prompto dried himself off. 

The fisherman and his son accepted Prompto’s teeth-chattering thank-yous and turned to go, but Prompto stopped them, hastily digging through his pack. 

“May I?” Prompto inquired once he’d straightened, triumphant, with his battered but lovingly polished camera. The young boy nodded with eagerness and the fisherman with grudging good humor, and Prompto hurried to get into a good position to take the shot. Ardyn took the camera from Prompto’s cold fingers and gently pushed him toward the other pair. 

“Go on,” Ardyn urged. “I’ll take the photo this once.” 

Prompto gave in and scurried over to his newfound friends, giving Ardyn a few minutes to get them all in the frame and appreciate the sight a healthy, carefree Prompto made, his hair sticking up in ridiculous shapes from the dried seawater and his smile so wide it threatened to split his face. 

They left the fishing village behind soon after, deciding to cross back over the mountains and maybe travel with an approximate goal of ending up in the large city to the north before the seasons turned again. The mountains faded into the forest and most of the days were peaceful. Prompto’s addition of vehicle repair to his list of marketable skills had improved their rate of successfully finding well-paid but still temporary jobs, and Ardyn was an unobtrusive, helpful assistant. 

The good hours were everything the beach-side swimming lesson had been, but there were bad points, too, for both of them. Ardyn supposed there couldn’t be any light without darkness—abundance needed scarcity to generate gratitude, after all. And sometimes the past caught up with them at unexpected moments. 

As happy as the beach had made Prompto, Ardyn didn’t forget, whenever he looked at that photograph of a sunny afternoon swim, what the morning preceding it had brought. Prompto, white-faced and shaking, tears leaking from his eyes as he re-lived something grim and unpleasant in his mind. All he had told Ardyn was that he wasn’t sure what his arm would do if he went swimming in salt water. Then he had seemed to collapse into himself, clutching at the artificial limb and biting his lips bloody. 

Other times Ardyn would hear something small—a long-forgotten birdsong, the sound of far-off laughter—and he would plunge into a rushing stream of his own distressing memories. Betrayals, so many betrayals. The nauseating feeling of daemon miasma swirling through his body, making his skin a too-thin barrier for the poisonous sickness and anger inside. The madness that had warped him, that had stained his former, youthful altruism, spreading like black ink on pale paper until there was nothing left of the healer. 

Well, maybe not _nothing_…but remembering the icy jolt of the world on the other side of the crystal, the fall of the Astrals as Ardyn had forced the violent, hateful scourge on their far-removed plane, watching as they absorbed it, defeated it, and were wrecked by it…the pressure on his mind to assimilate the vast knowledge of the gods and then compartmentalize it to retain his sanity…none of those memories was a pleasant recollection. 

Perhaps the gods slept only, and would return to Eos in a far-off future. It wouldn’t happen in Ardyn’s lifetime, at least. He never knew if he wished for the Six to reclaim their wayward land or for them to have perished in truth. 

Those were the dark hours for him, the times when he couldn’t escape the trap of his own head. But, just as Ardyn learned to carefully bring Prompto back from his wretched purgatory, Prompto learned to guide Ardyn the same way. 

And as they started to heal around their weak spots, the wider world mended with them. There wasn’t much news, in Lucis, of Niflheim, but the few bits of information that reached them sounded as positive as could be expected. There was a new government, one led by a former commander in Aldercapt’s army. Ardyn recognized her name, but didn’t dwell on it longer than it took him to realize the syllables were familiar. Prompto was even less invested, since everyone he had cared about had long since died on a metal table in a laboratory or inside Magitek armor, mind and body corrupted beyond repair. 

Sometimes Ardyn’s thoughts strayed to the remaining Lucis Caelum. Noctis. His fate had been to come to the altar of the Astrals like a bad-tempered lamb to the slaughter. But now…who knew what the young king might do. Ardyn imagined it had been as much of an adjustment for Noctis and his retinue to live without the magic of the Astrals’ gifts as it had been for Ardyn. It had taken more than a year for Ardyn to finally stop reaching instinctively for his incorporeal powers, but he had done it. Presumably the royal house of Caelum had done the same. 

When he and Prompto passed close to a larger town, Ardyn read that King Noctis Lucis Caelum was to wed Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret after all, with an expected nuptial date two years in the future. Their wedding had been much delayed, what with the destruction of the Lucis crystal, the fall and subsequent rise of the Niflheim government, and significant time spent negotiating treaties and new border agreements. Politics. Ardyn couldn’t say he missed it. 

He and Prompto had been on the coast again when Ardyn read about Noctis and Lunafreya, but they had saved up a fair amount of gil in the past few months and decided to rough it in the forests of Cleigne for a while. Prompto preferred Lucis to the other countries they had seen, claiming the flora was prettier and the fauna less aggressive. 

Ardyn thought it was a lot of nonsense, but he had long ago accepted that pleasing Prompto was never going to be something he argued against. They passed through a few small towns that bordered one of the larger forests, stocking up on supplies and taking turns ferreting out local delicacies they brought each other to taste. 

They were only a day’s hike from the last of the settlements when Prompto spied a sprawling, rickety structure through the trees and put a hand on Ardyn’s forearm to halt him. 

“I like it,” Prompto said, pulling Ardyn with him as he moved closer. 

“I’m fairly certain, my dear Prompto, that if you set one foot inside that house it would collapse around your ears.” 

“Maybe not,” Prompto responded cheekily, taking an exaggeratedly hesitant step onto the rotted-out front porch. 

“Prompto Argentum,” Ardyn said, voice stern. 

“Look,” Prompto called, having laughingly heeded Ardyn’s warning and scampered around to the back of the house. “I think there used to be an orchard back here. There’re apples, Ardyn! And pears.”

Prompto’s dirt-smudged face reappeared around the side of the house as Ardyn made his way to the back. 

“You know what you can do with pears?” Prompto asked, tossing one at Ardyn with a hopeful smile. 

“Eat them without encountering worms, one hopes,” Ardyn replied, eyeing the fruit critically. He privately admitted that it looked and smelled exemplary, woody and floral and very sweet. 

“Make pear-honey tart. Doesn’t that sound delicious?” Prompto lost himself in determining what kinds of trees had comprised the long-overgrown orchard and Ardyn cautiously put a fraction of his weight against the back of the house as he ate his pear. 

Prompto gathered up a number of healthy-looking apples, pears, and, surprisingly, hazelnuts. He chattered about roasting the nuts and Ardyn ate another pear, content. They made camp that night near a clearing under a sky of glittering stars. After they had cooked dinner and Ardyn had dutifully roasted Prompto a pan of hazelnuts, they sat back on their bedrolls, Prompto munching on the remains of his snack and Ardyn flicking stray twigs into the fire. 

Once Prompto was done eating, Ardyn tucked him up close, resting his chin on soft, blond hair and breathing in the smells of woodsmoke and ripe apples and the lavender soap he had made Prompto for their solstice celebration. Prompto hummed quietly, a nursery song Ardyn had taught him about a curious baby chocobo’s encounter with a baby rabbit. Prompto had interacted with the large birds in person for the first time several months ago and he had fallen in love with them, spending hours taking photographs and sketching, until Ardyn had resigned himself to the perpetual odor of chocobo feathers. 

As if impelled by Ardyn’s thoughts, Prompto tugged his sketch book from his pack and propped it up on his knee, leaning back completely against Ardyn’s broad chest. 

“Do you ever miss home?” Prompto asked, pencil moving in smooth, confident strokes across the paper. 

“Home? I suppose I would have to have had one to miss it,” Ardyn mused. 

“You’ve never had a home?” Prompto questioned, glancing up before continuing to draw. “What about when your mother was alive?”

Ardyn made a considering noise. “Yes, I did feel…at home when she was there. But that was a very long time ago indeed. The Lucis of my youth has faded from every memory save my own. And even I only recall it distantly.” Ardyn paused, feeding two more sticks to the flames while he thought. “I couldn’t separate Lucis from my brother when I…when Verstael found me. And I never viewed Niflheim as anything but a stepping stone to my own revenge. I didn’t _rest_ anywhere. I wasn’t even really myself. Ardyn Izunia, Ardyn Lucis Caelum…those men didn’t have homes. Now I am merely Ardyn, mortal man and wanderer. And my home is with you.” 

Prompto stilled his pencil and set his book aside, turning in Ardyn’s arms to press their bodies together in a wordless embrace. 

“Argentum,” he murmured after a while. “You could be Ardyn…Argentum.”

Ardyn’s grip tightened on Prompto’s narrow shoulders and his breath caught. He knew Prompto could feel the slight tremor that ran through him and he swallowed hard several times before trying to speak. 

“My hair does appear to be going in that direction,” Ardyn finally said, his voice rough with tears despite his best efforts. 

“I like it,” Prompto said, fingering the places the burgundy was shot through with silver. “You look very distinguished.” 

“Hm,” Ardyn replied with a wry inflection. He resettled Prompto so that the other man could go back to sketching and rested his weight on one hand, staring at the gradient colors of the fire as it flickered. His chest felt overfull with emotion, his eyes still heavy from the pressure of unshed tears. The intensity of it all gradually dissipated, until Ardyn was left feeling clean-swept and calm, like the shore after the sea has scoured it smooth. 

He let his gaze drift down over Prompto’s head, angling to see what he had drawn. It was…a house. _The_ house, the one with the apple trees, the one that was practically falling down. But Prompto had drawn it as it once might have been, as it could be. Tidy and cheerful and rambling, flowering trees to either side and the hint of a very ambitious orchard behind. 

“What’s this?” asked Ardyn, gesturing at the paper.

“A home,” Prompto said, and Ardyn felt like weeping all over again. Prompto’s clever fingers shaded in a beehive next to one of the apple trees in the background and Ardyn groaned through his wild, uncontainable happiness. 

“I am not going to tend bees for you just so you can have honey pastry,” he protested. 

“Of course not,” said Prompto, sounding shocked. “_I_ would obviously be the beekeeper. _You_ would just be the one making the honey pastry.” 

\- X -

Prompto carefully folded up the large bag he had made to use as a dark space for film development, putting it back with the other photography supplies he had gathered over the course of the year he and Ardyn had lived in their home. He closed the cabinet with a satisfied hum, stretching his arms overhead and stifling a yawn. 

Ardyn was somewhere in the surrounding forest, looking for a certain kind of mushroom he insisted was somehow superior to other mushrooms. Prompto privately felt that all mushrooms tasted equally good when fried in butter—his preferred method of preparation—but he had nodded agreeably when Ardyn left in the morning on his hunt. 

The long strips of negatives were drying on modified wire hooks in their bathroom and Prompto couldn’t wait to see what some of the images looked like in print. He had managed to assemble a way to transfer the pictures to special paper he coated with the right chemicals himself and the old house’s walls were liberally decorated with his photos and sketches. 

Prompto drifted down the hallway toward the kitchen, running his fingers over the strings of the guitar that rested on a stand just inside the sitting room, then pausing for a few moments to enjoy a rare photograph of himself and Ardyn together. It had been right after they’d finished planting the last of the flowers in the front of the newly restored house, and the two women from the nearby settlement who had come to help them—a thinly veiled excuse to enjoy the baked goods Ardyn was known to use as a reward for home improvement–related assistance—had urged Prompto and Ardyn to pose for them in front of a large lilac bush. 

Ardyn was looking down at Prompto with undisguised affection and Prompto was leaning up to kiss his cheek, lilacs blooming in glorious profusion behind them. Ardyn looked so different from his days in Niflheim, Prompto thought, gazing at the print with a fond smile. Well, they both did, to be fair. These days Ardyn favored a much shorter style for his gray-streaked hair, one that emphasized cheekbones grown more prominent with age. His face was gently scored with laugh lines, evidence of the time he and Prompto had been in each other’s company. 

Prompto, meanwhile, had gone the opposite direction and allowed his hair to grow past his shoulders. He liked to pull it back into a complex braid that hung down his spine, perhaps an unconscious rebellion against the years it had been kept as blond fuzz. Ardyn unwound the long strands every night, working his fingers through each lock and inevitably melting Prompto into a pliant, tranquil state. 

The sound of an approaching vehicle brought Prompto up from the pleasant thoughts he’d been floating in and he made his way out to the front yard, curious. The old truck he and Ardyn shared was still parked to the side of the house, and the engine Prompto could hear didn’t sound like anything he knew from the settlement. Since he’d worked on every vehicle there at some point, he was confident that whoever was coming down the road didn’t live nearby. 

As Prompto watched, a sleek, black convertible came into view, the driver taking the rustic, rutted road with slow caution. The car held three men and Prompto lifted a hand in friendly welcome when the car came to a slow stop near the house. There had been an off-rhythm, ragged sound to the engine and Prompto guessed the travelers were in need of repair work. Usually he preferred for the closest settlement’s modest garage to call him if they wanted his assistance with a particularly difficult job, as he and Ardyn valued their privacy, but it was possible the three strangers had convinced the local shop their case was too urgent to wait. 

“Hello,” Prompto called as the visitors got out of the car. “What brings you out here?” 

“Our car seems to be running poorly,” the driver replied, his voice even and smooth with a marked Tenebraean accent. 

“Guys at the garage back in town said you were the best for repairs,” added one of the passengers, an intimidatingly tall and muscular man with a scar running down one side of his face. 

“Hm,” Prompto replied. “All right. I’ll take a look.” 

The third member of their party, a dark-haired man with cool blue eyes who wasn’t much taller than Prompto, held up his phone. 

“Any chance you’ve got a signal booster inside?” he asked. 

Prompto shook his head.

“Nah, we’ve got phones for emergencies, but we don’t really use a data stream for anything.” 

The dark-haired man blinked in disbelief. 

“What do you _do_ out here all day?” he demanded, at the same time the giant said, “Who’s _we_?” 

Prompto examined the three of them with a slight frown, taking in the pricey, custom work done on the car and the expertly fitted, bespoke appearance of their casual clothing. 

“I take photos and fix cars and garden,” he answered, addressing the phone-brandishing man first. Then he turned to the suspicious-looking giant and said, “_We_ refers to my partner, who is expected back any minute.” 

It wasn’t strictly true; Ardyn could take the rest of the day hunting for wild mushrooms, but these three didn’t know that. Prompto mentally counted the steps back to the house, where he kept an old revolver hidden near the door. He’d have to talk to the woman who ran the garage about giving out his location in the future. He wasn’t retreating yet, but it wasn’t precisely comfortable to have three men, all of whom were larger and more martial-looking than he was, appear on his doorstep. 

“Thank you for your hospitality,” the Tenebraean said, putting both hands in Prompto’s view with a placating air. “Is there something we can do for you in return? Any repairs you need done? I am happy to fix a meal, in addition to paying you whatever gil you deem fair for the car work.” 

Prompto relaxed slightly, although he kept all three of them in front of him and in sight. 

“No, but thank you. The house is in right and tight shape and I believe my partner is gathering ingredients for something specific he intends to make tonight.” 

The Tenebraean’s self-possessed expression eased a bit and his lips curved up infinitesimally. 

“Oh? What kind of ingredients?” He seemed to surprise himself with that question, the unruffled mask sliding back into place immediately after he’d spoken. 

“Mushrooms,” Prompto replied, shrugging. “He has strong opinions about what kinds taste best in various dishes. He might be collecting other vegetables, too, if he comes across them.”

From the corner of his eye, Prompto saw the shorter, dark-haired man shudder. 

“Don’t get any ideas, Iggy,” he muttered under his breath, shoving his phone back into his pants pocket. 

“Why don’t you bring the car around to the back. Then you three can sit down on the back porch while I work,” Prompto directed. “If you, uh, want water or something I can get it for you. I’ll grab my tools while you move the car.” _And make sure my gun’s in easy reach_, he added to himself. 

When everything was settled, Prompto found himself falling into the contented place in his mind he often did when repairing engines. The convertible’s issues weren’t complicated, just fiddly and time-consuming. Prompto worked steadily, breaking a couple of times to bring out tumblers of cold water and a bowl of apples. He kept part of his attention on his unexpected guests, but they seemed disinclined to move from their chairs in the porch’s shade, to his relief. 

When the sun dipped low behind the trees and the shadows fell, Prompto wiped his forehead and admitted to himself that he wouldn’t finish the job that day. 

“I can get the rest done tomorrow morning,” he said to the Tenebraean. “I was hoping I’d have time to get through it today, sorry.” Prompto jolted a little as he realized he been so focused on fixing the car and sending the trio on their way that he had never introduced himself. “I apologize for my lack of manners! I don’t know if the garage told you before they sent you out here—I’m Prompto.” 

He scrubbed his hands vigorously against the material of his pants and held out his right hand to shake, glad he had bothered to put on a wide leather wristband that morning. No one had ever confronted him about the dark barcode, but it was easier not to have to explain away. 

“My name is Ignis,” the Tenebraean replied with a nod of acknowledgement. “Our manners also have been lacking and I, too, apologize. You’ve put in a lot of hard work today and we all appreciate it.” 

“No problem,” Prompto assured him, letting himself relax into an easy smile as he turned to the other two. 

“Sorry about earlier…Prompto, was it? Didn’t mean to spook you. I’m Gladio,” the giant said, taking Prompto’s hand in a brisk but not unfriendly movement. 

“It’s okay,” said Prompto. He looked over at the last man in their group, his grin widening. “I’m impressed you found something to do all afternoon, given our sad lack of entertainment.” 

The dark-haired man returned the smile with his own small, wry one. “Yeah. I might’ve had some stuff downloaded already. I’m Noct. Thanks for helping us out.” 

Prompto opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Ardyn appeared at the edge of their clearing, his posture alert. 

“You’re back!” Prompto enthused, running over to greet Ardyn with a hug. Ardyn held him close for a second, then walked back to the house with him slowly, asking Prompto in a low voice to explain the visitors. Prompto filled him in quickly with as much as he knew, then presented Ardyn to the other men with a smile. 

“Ignis, Gladio, Noct, this is—” Prompto began.

“Argentum,” Ardyn interjected. “Pleased to meet you all. Prompto says you had some car trouble.”

“It’ll be all set after an hour or so tomorrow morning,” Prompto said with a dismissive wave. He glanced at Ardyn, eyebrows tilted up questioningly, before adding to their guests, “You’re welcome to spend the night here if you’d like.” 

“Thank you,” Ignis said. “We’ll be pleased and grateful to camp out here.”

“Oh, you can stay in the house,” Prompto said. “It’s no trouble.” 

“Nah, we’re used to camping. Got everything set up the way we like it. Being on your land will be a nice change from the usual spots, though. Assuming you don’t mind if we use the bathroom?” Gladio asked. 

“Of course you’re welcome to it,” Prompto replied. “Take your time. There are extra towels in the cabinet below the sink. We’ve spent our share of nights outdoors. You’ve got to shower when the opportunity presents itself, right?”

“Definitely.” Noct’s agreement was fervent and Prompto laughed, meeting eyes a darker blue than his own, but just as amused. “Dibs on first place.”

“I’ll show you back,” Prompto offered, leading Noct through the door. 

“Would you care for any assistance preparing dinner?” he heard Ignis say to Ardyn as they walked to the bathroom. 

“You guys don’t have to help cook,” Prompto said, handing Noct a fresh bar of rosemary soap and a fluffy towel. 

“Iggy loves to cook, plus he’s competitive. I’m sure he and Argentum will spend all night comparing techniques.” Noct paused, running his fingers over the edge of the towel with a frown. “Your, uh, _Argentum_…have you known him long?” 

“Years,” said Prompto. “He saved my life—stitched me up when I was hurt. I’ve been with him ever since.” 

“Oh.” Noct searched Prompto’s face for a moment, then glanced away, seeming satisfied by what he’d seen. “He just…reminded me of someone.”

“Someone nice?” Prompto asked. 

Noct gave a short laugh. “No.”

“I’m sorry,” Prompto said. 

“Nothing to do with you, really,” Noct responded with a shrug. 

“I mean, I’m sorry you had to deal with whatever made your face go all sad.” 

“Oh…thank you,” said Noct in a softer tone, meeting Prompto’s eyes again. 

“At least it’s in the past, right? I’ll let you get to enjoying the hot water now.” Prompto stepped back into the hallway and threw Noct another friendly smile before closing the door behind him. 

Prompto didn’t know many details about what Ardyn had done during his time as Niflheim’s chancellor, but he guessed most of it was bad. It seemed unlikely that a random traveler in Lucis would have encountered Ardyn in his old life, but Prompto supposed it was possible. Or maybe Noct had just seen news coverage of Ardyn during one of Niflheim’s attacks. He knew the fall of Insomnia had been widely publicized and that Ardyn had had a hand in its temporary demise. 

But Insomnia was being rebuilt, and without a wall of magic isolating it, the city had been resettled by a wider variety of citizens than its former population had included. There were inevitably tensions between various groups, but overall Insomnia’s rebirth seemed successful, from what Prompto gathered during his infrequent trips to town. 

Prompto stepped out onto the back porch again, finding Gladio idly juggling a pair of apples and Ardyn standing over the grill farther back in the yard, Ignis making difficult-to-interpret gestures next to him. 

“You know how to juggle, kid?” Gladio asked, catching one of the apples mid-air and tossing it in Prompto’s direction. 

“No,” Prompto said, catching the apple with the sharp reflexes that had never left him. Gladio whistled in appreciation and Prompto flushed, pleased and a little uncomfortable, as he always was when reminded of his unusual physical enhancements. 

“Wanna learn?” 

Prompto glanced over at the grill, where Ardyn was now gesturing while Ignis rubbed a finger over his chin with a doubtful expression. 

“Sure?” Prompto replied, accepting a second apple from Gladio. It was hard to see very well in the lengthening shadows, but the porch lights helped, and by the time Ignis and Ardyn had gotten a healthy blaze going in both the fire pit and beneath the grill, Noct was out of the shower and Prompto was expertly juggling two apples. 

The smell of charcoal, smoke, and daggerquill stuffed with hot peppers soon wafted over to them and Prompto heard his stomach rumble. He’d slowly worked his system up to tolerating spicy food, and he knew Ardyn had likely made a special effort to find Prompto’s favorite peppers that afternoon, an easily overlooked strain of tiny, bright red pods that had nearly made steam come out of his ears the first time he’d eaten them. 

“Smells like a vegetable,” Noct observed. 

“How old are you?” Gladio cuffed Noct lightly with a snort.

“Old enough to know I don’t like peppers,” Noct retorted. 

“Calm down, princess,” said Gladio. “I know for a fact that Iggy’s making grilled rice balls, too.” 

Noct perked up at the news and pulled out his phone, tapping its surface with quick, practiced movements. 

“What are you doing?” Prompto asked, putting the apples down and leaning over Noct’s shoulder to peer at his screen. 

“Gaming,” Noct answered, making one of the little figures on his phone jump across a deep ravine. 

“Huh,” said Prompto. 

“Want to try?” Noct offered. 

Prompto shrugged good-naturedly. “Yeah, okay. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it, though.”

“It’s just for fun,” Noct said, handing over his phone. 

Prompto messed around for a while, trying to follow Noct’s advice and directions with minimal success and a lot of laughter. It _was_ fun, and Prompto for a few minutes enjoyed the startlingly effortless way he and Noct interacted. 

Then Ignis called them over to eat and Prompto devoted his attention to consuming spicy daggerquill, a packet of grilled mushrooms and wild onions, and a rice ball. Noct, he noticed, seemed mostly interested in the rice balls, and put away at least five before Ignis pointedly served him a helping of daggerquill, peppers removed.

Prompto hid a smile in his glass of water, unexpectedly amused. It was…cute, really, the way Noct’s friends cared for him and humored his inexplicable vegetable aversion. It reminded Prompto a little of how Ardyn always checked to be sure Prompto was getting the right amount of food and never made a fuss about ordering for both of them at a restaurant if Prompto became anxious over the menu. 

Once they’d all finished eating and Ardyn had cleared away the mess from dinner, the five of them sprawled out on old blankets spread near the fire, listening to it hiss and crackle above the low hum of nocturnal insects and animals in the forest. 

“Where’re you guys headed?” Prompto asked. He knew he wasn’t imagining the sudden but brief tension that went through his three guests and he exchanged a curious glance with Ardyn. 

“Taking a bit of a tour, you could say,” Ignis answered. “We haven’t been anywhere except Insomnia and Altissia for years.”

“Oh, you’re from Insomnia?” Prompto asked, brightening. “It sounds like they’ve made real progress rebuilding.”

“Yeah, it’s been…remarkable,” Noct replied, his voice quiet but unmistakably proud. “We left the city right before it…right before the destruction. Went straight to Altissia and just stayed there. It was…well, we were supposed to meet some people there, but they were delayed. After…after things in Niflheim fell apart, my, uh, girlfriend and I managed to reconnect. Then we went back to Insomnia to help with the rebuild. Before we get married, I wanted to tour Lucis, you know, see things from…a different perspective.”

Noct closed his mouth abruptly, looking astonished that he had said so much. Judging from Ignis’ blank face and Gladio’s pained one, they were similarly taken aback.

“Wow,” Prompto said, then changed the subject, wanting to take the attention off Noct’s unexpectedly exposed vulnerability. “So…girlfriend?” He swept the three of them with a single, questioning glance. “You know, I kinda thought…you guys are so….” Prompto blushed a little and looked down. “Never mind.” 

The abruptness of the shift in topic as much as its content kept the rest of them speechless for a moment, then Noct burst into laughter, followed by Ignis and Gladio. Ardyn’s gold eyes gleamed in the firelight as he directed a faux-scolding look Prompto’s way and shook his head. 

“You aren’t the first to think that,” Noct got out, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. 

“And also not entirely incorrect,” Ignis said demurely, a little smile hovering over his lips as he tipped his head toward Gladio. 

The giant tugged Ignis over into his lap and gave him a smacking kiss. 

“This one is all I can handle,” Gladio said, letting Ignis slid off his legs and reseat himself with his usual dignity, only a little flushed. “Noct is all Lu—er, his _girlfriend’s_ problem.” 

Prompto shifted to sit closer to Ardyn, tucking his legs under him and leaning his head against Ardyn’s shoulder. 

“I’m glad you’re all happy,” he said into the companionable silence that had fallen after Gladio’s last statement. 

“You know…we really are,” Noct said, his voice wondering, as if he hadn’t ever expected to feel that way. 

Prompto reached over to squeeze Noct’s hand and they exchanged a look that wouldn’t have been out of place between two friends of much longer standing. It gave Prompto a fuzzy, cozy feeling that was less intimate than what he knew with Ardyn, but nevertheless enjoyable. He thought…it might be friendship.

Something flashed across Ardyn’s face when Prompto pulled his hand back from Noct’s, something pained and resigned and self-mocking. 

“You all right?” Prompto murmured, worried. 

Ardyn’s mouth relaxed in a faint but genuine smile and he rubbed Prompto’s back in a familiar, comforting way. 

“With you? Every day.”

\- X -

Ardyn dutifully took a photograph of Prompto with their unexpected and—in Ardyn’s case—somewhat unwelcome visitors the next morning. The four young men stood leaning together against the sleek convertible, Prompto with a smudge of engine oil on one cheek and all of them wreathed in smiles. 

Prompto waved after the departing car until it rolled out of sight, then he turned back to Ardyn with a distracted expression. Ardyn felt something in his chest seize and he carefully pasted a neutral look on his face.

“Something on your mind?” he asked. 

“Oh, I’m fine,” Prompto replied, brightening. “I’m just thinking about how I might try to grow a hybrid of that golden apple breed with the red pears. They both taste a little like honey already, so I was wondering if a hybrid would taste good in a honey tart or if it would just be too much, well, honey flavor.” 

Ardyn felt a dizzying wave of relief knock his legs out and he sank down onto their front steps. _Prompto isn’t leaving_, he thought, his temples throbbing as he began to relax again. 

“_Too much_ honey?” he teased automatically, still a little lightheaded. “I wasn’t aware you could recognize such a thing.” 

“Ha ha,” Prompto said, always too cheerful for sarcasm to really be effective. “What would I call my hybrid? A papple?” 

“I’d cogitate on that a bit further before committing,” Ardyn murmured. He’d thought…he’d worried Prompto might have been dazzled by Noctis Lucis Caelum, by men about Prompto’s own age, and the things they took for granted—the friendships, the opportunities. 

The knowledge of the Astrals had been Ardyn’s when the crystal had shattered, and for brief, dizzying moments, he had seen all that was and is and could be, a million different paths for the world to take, a billion. Tens of billions. 

He’d tried to recall what he could of those countless potential lives, painstakingly sorting through what he could remember to determine what other fates might have been theirs. 

An Eos where Prompto was rescued from Niflheim as a baby and grew up to be one of Noctis’ boon companions; one where Prompto died as a child in a training accident in the Magitek facility; an Eos where Ardyn ruled in darkness and decay, where he killed Prompto and Ignis and Gladiolus, where Noctis went into the crystal and emerged years later, fulfilling the Astral’s dearest prophecies without hesitation. 

Ardyn hated every thread that wasn’t this one, the only one free of any divine manipulation. In _this_ Eos, Ardyn had Prompto, and he could ensure that Prompto was happy. 

But Ardyn knew there were innumerable possible timelines where Prompto’s fate and life were inextricably tangled up with Noctis and Ignis and Gladiolus. Especially Noctis. Seeing their camaraderie the night before, seeing how rapidly and seamlessly Prompto fell in with the king, had skewered Ardyn’s heart.

“Is something wrong?” Prompto asked, sitting next to Ardyn. 

“I was just thinking about you and how you might, given the chance, prefer something…different from where you’ve ended up.” Ardyn took a breath. “That you may not have truly considered what a fuller life could look like. What more…friendships might be like.” 

“This is _my_ life, and it _is_ full, Ardyn. I chose you then and I choose you now. I’ll always choose you. What we have in this life is everything I want.”

“It’s everything I want, too, more than I can ever express.” Ardyn kissed Prompto’s forehead with reverent lips. “The best decision I’ve ever made was to patch you up and set you free.” 

“I love you,” Prompto whispered, pressing his face close to Ardyn’s shoulder and burying his nose in Ardyn’s throat. 

“And I love you. Prompto Argentum.”


End file.
